Saturday, 27 July 2013

I feel like writing, but nothing is coming to me as I try. I'm meant to doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month but that been a complete fail. I'm probably only wrote slightly over 1000 words creatively so far this month and there is only four days left.

This blog been slacking as well, I've been cheating with the dates as well. Reviews as well as the post. I just been struggling to write anything and figure out the way I want to write. Plots there, but I'm never happy with the words when I finally to get any out.

I'm kinda back on reading, but I hadn't actually reading that much since college stopped. I did the BookTube-a-Thon and managed to do all the challenges including reading 2166 pages. However, I just didn't want to read after the week till Friday, I needed a five day break.

I'm also meant to be doing VEDJ (Video Every Day in July) but that has failed past week. I've filmed two videos repeatedly but all the takes were shit, so never even started editing it. I've also done no drawing, I want to draw petty things like boys, men kissing. Also no job, not even jobs that there any point applying to because dear children, most jobs when you have no proper training/experince/driving lisence required you to talk and as you all know talking is not something I do. Speaking to a camra, yes, but not so much to people. Life is not fun when you're unemployed, no clue as why anyone likes this. Sure, you don't have to leave your bed but its gets rather pointless.I'm going to see about voluntering, basically not leaving the house for a month is enough of nothing. I need the experince as well you know helping people and it important to do good stuff. I don't properly give money to charity, I sometimes buy books from charity shops for a little more than there worth in present condition but that still me getting something from it. So yeah, help the world and that. I'm off to hopefully get some reading done. By the Bye, the Wednesday review isn't likely to be every week as I'm not as reading as much but reviews will now only appear on Wednesdays when they do appear here. See you lot next week.

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Surprisingly, "The Time Machine" does indeed feature a time machine, two in fact.

When a Victorian scientist propels himself into the year 802,701 AD he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment and peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realises that this beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great culture - now weak and childishly afraid of the dark. They have every reason to be afraid: in the deep tunnels beneath their paradise lurks another race descended from humanity - the sinister Morlocks. And when the scientist's time machine vanishes, it becomes clear he must search theses tunnels if he is ever to return to his own era.

This actually a short story/novella, which I did not know before picking it up so perfect for people who want to read more classics but are intimidate by length.You're also probably need a dictionary reading this as Victorians did loved big words. Its also narrated by someone other than The Time Traveller.

This isn't really about characters, it more a statement about the time. In fact, the only character to be given a name is the Eloi that the Time Traveller befriends, Weena. She is also the only one where you're feel any of emotions for. The Narrator's name is also hinted but not stated. All the other characters are just titles e.g.the Psychologist and The Doctor (Yes, that did amuse me and give me all sorts of DW ideas) Okay, just flicking through the book the above is a lie there also a red head named Filby. There is no character development, the Time Travolor is still agorgat as ever and not likable at all but like I said that's not the point. Oh, by the bye, there is no romance in the time machine unless you count the tense between the Narrator and certain other guest.

The Time Machine was the first story to be about Time Traveling and probably should be used as the rule book. Its literally so far in the future that it never likely to be declared wrong. However, you can say it's outdated. What I mean is the Morlocks are meant to be descended from hard working poor and Eloi are Elite who just dance about and stuff. One, the devilde isn't as strong as it used to be; people can climb up and down the ladder of money. Two, the Upper Class have always enjoyed roumping around with their "lowers". These two things make it very unlikely that the Humanity would be spilt in such a way. Though, in my opinion the Morlocks could easily be descended from another species of apes and not Homo Sapiens. H.G. Wells was a Biologist but evolution was still a very new idea at the point.

Another thing is that Time Machine doesn't always follow the stated rules. At a point in the story the time machine is moved and not moved back before used. Not being too spoilery basically should have been embed into the something.

I gave "The Time Machine" 4/5 stars for humping Eloi. Its interesting and worth to read if you like Science Fiction just to see where it started ( I bet that up for debate but I don't know cause I never looked).

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

If you’re not true to yourself, why should anyone else be?In her second year of high school Rose Zarelli is determined to become Rose 2.0 - as in, innovative...superior...improved.Improved how? Well, Rose is setting some ground rules. This year she absolutely most definitely will NOT:1) do things just because other people want her to2) randomly shoot her mouth off3) worry about whether she’s someone’s girlfriend—or not.And
most important of all she determined to tell off Jamie Forta, the boy
who might just have broken her heart, once and for all and move on.After all she’s older and smarter now. She can totally pull this off.How hard can it be? Right? Right?

This book was rather baw. It has all these issues in it Homophobia, bullying, child abuse, spouse abuse, drug addiction, grief and the mention of a creepy sexual experience. I did not care about any of these as I did not care for any of the characters. Which is quite the fault for contemporary romance, it's not like it's fantasy or something plot driven. You shouldn't really care about the characters. Frankly, there all could have dropped dead and it would have just been something that happened.

Also why is every punishment being banned from sports. Are American schools really that dumb? Very convenient that everyone that needs punishing takes a sport very serious.

It was just a very what was the point? I was hoping for something more than the romance. You did have some friendship action going on but it was rather stereotypical. I just no. I'm not actually sure now why I wanted to read this book, it weird I really can't remember.

It just seem all unlikely, the author was just shoving issues into the book. I get the whole "Trying to show that you don't really know what going on with other people and why they do the things they do" but it didn't feel real.

I didn't get the ending, why the hell did no one just tell the police the truth?

Basically no one learned or gained anything. I gave it the baw rating of 2/5 stars and recommend it to someone who has yet to go High School so that would mean preteens over here and likes that sort of thing.

Saturday, 13 July 2013

Okay, I've been thinking about death lately. Or more my near death or server injury experience since I was hit by a car on Wednesday. Okay, that sounds so dramatic. It was more a slight bump.
I lost a tiny bit of skin off left knuckle, the one under finger next to the thumb. It just put slight panic in me about my stupidity.

I have almost been ran over by a car three times. Detain is probably not really needed. It more about what was going on in my head. I have these moment where I'm not really in the world. I make a plan of action and carry through and almost get killed in the process sometimes.

Also I've never been near suicide, though that probably more my stubbornness to never quiet anything, however I have been in moods where I don't care. I don't wear my seatbelt and I don't leave my bed without force. Just generally walking around with a deathwish.

What I'm trying to say is that going to the Job Centre made me (briefly) suicidal and I'm thankfully that I have post my thing instead of going there every two weeks.

I also attempted to give blood this week, but my iron wasn't high enough. I got the cool image of seeing my blood dripped down a needle and a large bruise on my arm from that needle.

Wednesday, 10 July 2013

On the heels of a family tragedy,
Katie Greene must move halfway across the world. Stuck with her aunt in
Shizuoka, Japan, Katie feels lost. Alone. She doesn’t know the language,
she can barely hold a pair of chopsticks, and she can’t seem to get the
hang of taking her shoes off whenever she enters a building.

When
Katie meets aloof but gorgeous Tomohiro, the star of the school’s kendo
team, she is intrigued by him... and a little scared. His tough
attitude seems meant to keep her at a distance, and when they’re near
each other, strange things happen. Pens explode. Ink drips from nowhere.
And unless Katie is seeing things, drawingscome to life.

Somehow
Tomo is connected to the kami, powerful ancient beings who once ruled
Japan—and as feelings develop between Katie and Tomo, things begin to
spiral out of control. The wrong people are starting to ask questions,
and if they discover the truth, no one will be safe.

I heard about this book last year so I was rather excited to see it on Netgalley/it coming out (Came out 5th July UK). I think I might have hype this book too much to myself as I just loved the idea of it. I have a soft spot for Japan and as I love art/illustration I love supernatural/powers involving drawings. It's a good book but its wasn't as good as I was hoping. I think I just wanted Amazing, but it wasn't that level of awesome.

This book contains drawings in appropriate places that correspond to the story. The also lovely art on the chapter's head and these tiny drawings in the corners of the page. So I got this off Netgallery (as I kinda said above), but I'm planning to eventually get my own copy of this book and this one of the reason. Also this is a start of a series and I definitely want to read the next book.

The characters were all very likable, though the main character Katie does a bit of a stalker issue. I really liked Katie best friends Yuki and Tanaka. I like Tomohiro as character/person, but not sure what I think of romantic interest. Though, romance doesn't really do much for me to begin with. Katie herself quite a strong character, she been through a lot of with the sudden death of her mother and the whole moving to a very foreign country. Also her aunt is very sweet.

Japanese is sprinkle through out the book which I like quite like. Though that might only because I briefly attempted to learn Japanese to watch Anime without subtitles and know what some Japanese words mean before reading 'Ink'. Also it plays into the whole Katie being from another country and natively speaks another language. Its kinda weird since it's English speaking book but the characters are actually speaking Japanese for majority of the book. I think that sentence made sense.

So I gave this book 4/5 stars and I plan to continue the series. You can currently find the prequel novella 'Shadow' (and the first chapter of Ink) to read on Wattpad. I actually sort of like the prequel more as you got Tomohiro point of view too and I gave it 5/5 stars.

I also made a video review for this book on my booktube channel where you can hearing me talking about it and attempting to speak Japanese.

When Billie inherits her grandmother's house, it's a fairytale come true. Maybe She can find the father she's never met. But moving back to her mum's childhood home dredges up secrets- and Billie soon discovers that people may die, but the past lives forever.

I have no strong feelings towards this book. It was aright. It is something I would call a light read (though does involves dark themes). Its a bit too heavy with the whole...

I really like layout of the book, the chapters switch between Billie's point of view of the present and the point of view of a family member of the past. While this book is about Billie, it more about how Billie came to be and the family dynamics that Billie's mum, Het grew up with and explains why she the way she is partly.

Billie's mum does annoy me sometimes. Just her actions, what she puts Billie and Finn through, but that's probably intentional. She obviously surfing from some sort of mental illness, even if its straight up depression. She just really selfish like they no consideration for her kids, even though she is mentally ill they should have been some of glimpse of actually caring about her kids. Its all about her.

There three romances in this book, the only one I actually care for is the one that it would be too much of a spoiler to talk about. There others just seemed like replacements for actually liking ones family.

I do like the ending, its leaves with hope that Billie will gain something like what she wanted to from moving there.

Saturday, 6 July 2013

So my week without parents is coming to a close. How time flies when there isn't any family members to bug. My parents are coming back late tomorrow now, bring with them my older sister and little brother. The older sister will leave, I will probably leave before my little brother does.

So this week has been productive in terms of video making as I have managed to make a video every day so far this month (Here a playlist of my VEDJ videos). I haven't been that successfully in terms of writing and tidying my room. My room is still quite a state, I have almost finished organising my clothes which is the hardest part of organising my room. For some reason dealing with my clothes really takes a lot out of me mentally and physically. The fact I almost cried about the prospect of putting them away after I had taken them all out is probably indication that I have too many clothes or that it was 3 am and I was pushing myself to get it done. I'll have to finish up tomorrow before my parents get back as my bed is still covered in stuff and I've been sleeping in their bed as my dog is suk who likes soft beds and carpets.

Seriously, I woke up yesterday with him lying on my side of the bed and trying to lick my face. I everywhere I turn he's there as I'm the only one in the house he likes. For some reason he doesn't like my sib, I always wonder why that it is. Though, if I sleep with my door open I might find idiot on top of me more often.

I meant to be doing Camp NaNoWriMo which has been some what of a fail as I've only wrote a thousand and something words. To be honest I haven't been forcus on it much, I just really want to get my room sorted and then I will go back to writing. I'll just have a day where I sit and forus myself to write until I get the words out of me.

So till then I leave you the short story I did managed to write. I rather like it.

The Exit

I find her in the woods. I go to her as woman: older than
her mere teen years, but not mother figure. A sister if anything because she’ll
need someone who won’t coddle her but will hold her hand. Someone she’ll trust
and not see as a threat.

She stands looking down at what remains of her violated
body. They are others young who suffered worst, but I’m still saddened. I’m
always saddened by unnatural deaths. To have life taken from you is a terrible
thing. Though, I’ve never had it to know.

She feels my presence and turns towards me. I’m glad that
came to her from the side,so we won’t
have to walk through the remains. I offer out my hand, she goes to takes it but
stops and looks back down.

“Why did he do it?” she asks sounding even more like the
child she is. Once upon time, a girl her age would have died in childbirth
to her seconded children. I have come for many a child with their own baby.

There so rarely ever talk and I’m never sure what to say to
them when they do.

“That’s not my job to tell you,” I say because it all I can
say. I don’t pretend to know why humans hurt each other, even after all these
millenniums, the only other answer I could give her was that he’s sick and
that’s not what she wants to hear right now. It’s only my job to show them to
the exit.

She stands in silence for a few of their minutes.I step towards her and take her arm gently.

“It’s time to leave this
place,” I whisper to her. I don’t want to leave her, I hate leaving them to
find their own way there.

“I don’t want to go,” she
weeps. Even though her body and its water have gone, she forms her tears. The
crier always do, it’s something their souls learned to do in life.I stoke the tears from her face, maybe I was
wrong not to come as a mother.

“You can’t and don’t want to
stay here,” I say to her. When I leave them they always wander confused,
unhappy.

“What about my mum? I’m all
she has,” she whimpers.

“You’re be lost to her if
you stay,” I say it, but I’m not sure it true. She could already be lost.I don’t know anything about what’s behind the
exit, just that I have to bring them to it and I will never past it myself.

She pulls away from me; she
walks to the other side of her body.

“Do you’re think they’re
find me?” she asks me.I look around at
all the livers crowded around us. They clearly already have. The dead and
livers never notice each other. I do my best to ignore the livers as there are of no
importance to me.

“I’m certain they will,” I
say as a policeman pushes his way through the crowd.The search group actually found her before I
arrived. They need time to adjust before the exit.

“Good,” she briefly smiles,
before it’s vanishes quickly. She offers out her hand. I smile at the gesture
before taking it.I let her leads out
the woods before guild her to the exit. It’s important she leaves somewhere
other than the place she was forces out.

The exit is everywhere and
anyway. I take her to the park where she played as small child and had her
first kiss as an older child.

“Will you come with me?” She
asks as she feels the exit open.

I want to say yes, I always
want to say yes. To the toddlers who have never across anyway without someone; to those
who are too scared to go themselves; to those who don’t ask. She still too wary
to go anyway herself. She learnt that lesson.

“I can’t,” I say simply. “I
watch till you go through.

“Thanks,” she says. I smile
at strangeness of being thanked for my simple job. There always afew who do. She leans in and kisses me on the
lips. She brushes them slowly, I decide to kiss back. I’ve been kissed before.
On the check by children, on the hand by gentlemen; being kissed this way is
very rare and I’m not sure when it will happen again.

She pulls away smiling at
me, I smile back.

“I wanted my last kiss, I
mean before I went to be nice,” she playing with the long hair I had decide on.
“It was lovely.”

We stand for another of
their minutes before she speaks again.

“I have to go now, don’t I?”

I just nod and she walks
through the exit as I watch her.

I leave to the next soul, happy
knowing my decision to come as young woman was right.

Wednesday, 3 July 2013

The tagline for this book totally should have been "Acid, it'll make you trip".

2113. In Jenna Strong's world, ACID - the most brutal, controlling police
force in history - rule supreme. No throwaway comment or muttered dissent goes
unnoticed - or unpunished. And it was ACID agents who locked Jenna away for
life, for a bloody crime she struggles to remember.The only female inmate in a violent high-security prison, Jenna has learned
to survive by any means necessary. And when a mysterious rebel group breaks her
out, she must use her strength, speed and skill to stay one step ahead of ACID -
and to uncover the truth about what really happened on that dark night two years
ago.

I really liked this books but there is a few problems with it. Mainly that I never brought the premise. I just found the set up too unrealistic. It has Britain basically becoming police state in fifty years time due to the country going bankrupt and Europe kicking us out. That part that really undid the world for me. Britain would have to really piss off Europe (I'm presuming the whole of Europe have joined together at this point and not just the few in the EU) to get kicked out. I mean several country have went bankrupt (or close to it) and the EU help them (though that probably mainly to save the Euro).

I never brought people just being so very happy to let ACID take over in the first place. I know we only ever given the distorted view of this history but there would have been many a riot (even with the anti-ACID groups I just don't this is covered enough). Britain isn't bunch of push overs and we're very ford of alcohol (which banned in the world of ACID). I just don't believe it and unbelievable set up ruins the rest of the book for me in general which sort of did in ACID. I don't maybe if the book was set two hundred years in the future instead of one but with that said this book reminds me a lot of 'Slated' by Terri Terry (which I did a review on), they're not the same but have a few similarities with being British, new police stricture and altering of brains. 'Slated' only set forty years in the future but I bought it more. Pass just could have done a better job with making a more realistic world.

Another thing bug me is that its never explain why the books starts with Jenna being in a fully male prison. Surely there would be high Security prison for females as woman do commit violet crimes. I don't know its meant to be something they did to mess with her. We're just left to ponder where all the female murderers are.

Besides the bad world building, ACID is actually quite good. Jenna is really interesting character and kick arse character (though her actions in the last part of the book do annoy me somewhat, like what hell are you're doing. I suppose it would have been a boring end if she had just left to the others to finish). Also prepare to be confused as Jenna ends up using several different names during the book due to the whole hiding from ACID thing.

Another nice thing about this book is that its stand alone which is so rare in YA and Dystopia. Its all wrapped up nicely at the end of the book.

There is a bit of romance, which is cause the bit that annoyed me at Jenna, but other that I think it was buyable and nice. Yeah, I don't really care about romance parts in books.

Overall, I gave this book 4/5 stars, a few things could have been improved but it was still good book and nice addition to the Dystopia genre.